20130728

off by an inch (little moment of compulsion #6)

Today I was doing some small tidying when I did a double-take of one of our bookshelves. We have three of them, you know, all from Ikea. One tall and wide, one tall and narrow, and one short and wide, sitting smartly on top of a dresser of the same color and width. I did my double take of the last one, noticing that it was crookedly situated. I prowled around it for two minutes, looking at it from various angles, including above in order to see the distance from the wall. Yes, indeed, it was most certainly off by an inch--an inch too far away from the wall on its right side, to be precise.

I felt a mix of confusion, anger, and embarrassment--all mild, it was only a bookshelf, after all--since it had been like this for two years and before I noticed. Two years! Gah! We're hoping to move out of university housing in the next few months (once we find a place we like), but I knew that this would bother me every moment I looked at it. So, I did what any sensible person would do: I took out all the books (and some miscellany), dusted down the shelves, and pushed the right side in an inch.

Then, before putting everything back, I did a second round of dusting and inspected everything to see if we actually needed it. I even went through every pen in our jar-o-pens (which lives on that bookshelf) to make sure that they all worked. The whole process didn't take too long, but I probably should have been doing laundry or vacuuming instead.